Ruggeri and J-Ax shift from SIAE

(ANSA) - Milan, January 8 - It was April 2016 when the Italian rapper Fedez announced that he would be switching from SIAE, the Italian royalties clearinghouse for copyrighted material, to Soundreef, a start-up company founded by Davide D'Atri and Francesco Danieli in London in 2011 to break SIAE's monopoly.
    Few at that time knew anything about the company. Gigi D'Alessio, who left immediately after Fedez, proclaimed at that time that "many will follow me". He has been proven right: over 11,000 have since followed in his footsteps, including such well-known figures as Fabio Rovazzi, Nesli and Noyz Narcos.
    Now, two-time Sanremo winner Enrico Ruggeri and the rapper J-Ax have also left SIAE for Soundreef. While J-Ax's decision was to be expected due to his close friendship with Fedez, Ruggeri's strongly surprised SIAE.
    The singer thanked the company for the many years together.
    "We are the ones who should thank 'Maestro Ruggeri' for the very many years in which he was are associate and who in 2016," SIAE director general Gaetano Blandini said, "was among the first thousand signatories of the SIAE letter to defend copyright law. Precisely because we have had the chance to get to know the sensitivity of Enrico Ruggeri in the battles to protect copyright, his choice seems incomprehensible to us." Soundreef, Blandini said "according to the regulations in force, is operating illegitimately in our country, in which intermediation activities concerning copyright law are restricted to organizations like SIAE that are non-profit and managed by their associates." Chairman Filippo Sugar said that SIAE "is and will continue to be a non profit company governed by its own associates, and which cannot - and above all does not want to - get involved in purchasing campaigns. SIAE is in line with the regulations in force, in line with the Barnier directive and thus does not discriminate between its associates, treating them all the same." Soundreef - which now boasts over 11,000 Italian authors and publishers signed up to it, with a 25% growth over the past 12 months - is meanwhile celebrating Ruggeri's choice. "Enrico Ruggeri's arrival," D'Atri said, "is a great honor for us. Working with his repertoire renders us happy and proud of the direction we have taken and is proof of our company's progress." As often happens, "everything began from a meeting between Soundreef's 'youth'," Ruggeri said. "I found enthusiasm, a combative attitude towards challenges and the desire to communicate plans, qualities that I have always sought out in the people with whom I work. It is not an 'agency'; it is a group of people with a face and a voice. This is why I decided" to work with them. Some, on the other hand, have decided to shift from Soundreef to SIAE, such as the pianist Andrea Tonoli. Tonoli has composed soundtracks for films, documentaries and television commercials, as well as having worked for National Geographic.